"Oh yes," Emmerich tells Den of Geek when asked if the disaster genre has changed in recent years. "Because naturally Marvel and DC Comics, and Star Wars, have pretty much taken over. It's ruining our industry a little bit, because nobody does anything original anymore."
The comment is not necessarily surprising for Emmerich, who's spoken in the past about his ambivalence toward superhero movies, particularly Marvel ones which he once said he likes to watch on planes in order to fall asleep. When we talk to him in 2022, he admits that part of that skepticism for the genre stems from the fact that he grew up in Germany many years before the concept of superheroes were successfully transplanted to that market—mostly by Marvel movies.
"You should make bold new movies, you know?" Emmerich tells us. "And I think, actually, Christopher Nolan is the master of that. He is someone who can make movies about whatever he wants. I have it a little bit harder, but I still have a big enough name—especially when it's a disaster [movie] or has some sort of disaster theme."
It's how Emmerich got the funding for an original idea he had for Moonfall: What if the moon was not a natural object but a "megastructure," as some conspiracy theorists happily suggest? And what if that megastructure actually started to fall to the Earth? It's a concept Emmerich's been trying to get off the ground for years, and it finally arrives in theaters later this week.
